DESTREHAN, La. — For this week's Access Code, we head to St. Charles Parish and the 70047 ZIP Code in Destrehan.
The German Coast Farmer's Market held on Wednesdays and Fridays is a main attraction. The St. Charles Borromeo Church boasts the oldest German cemetery in the South. Right down the street is the George Prince Ferry Memorial in honor of the 77 victims in the worst ferry disaster in U.S. history.
The area has two plantations on River Road: the Destrehan Plantation and the Ormond Plantation.
The Ormond Plantation is a popular destination for weddings and has a restaurant open to the public. Chef Richard Kiral showcased some of his menu items for us.
"My cuisine is called River Road Cuisine. It's kind of a melting pot of a little bit of German, a little bit of Creole and a little bit of Cajun," Kiral said.
Chef Kiral showed us the crabmeat and shrimp stuffed eggplant, pecan smoked pork rack over a sweet potato hash, crabmeat and brie appetizer and the featured pecan crusted catfish.
Construction on the original house started in the 1780s by Pierre Trepagnier on a tract of land he was awarded from the Spanish Government for his service during the American Revolutionary War.
The two wings on either side of the house, which are called garconnieres, are taller than the main building - giving the plantation a distinctive look.
As you can imagine, the building has changed hands many times over two centuries. In the mid-1900s, the plantation was bought by owners of the Brown Velvet Dairy. They modernized the house with indoor plumbing, gas and electricity.
Ormond Plantation is currently owned by the Carmouche Family. Alongside the restaurant, which has six different dining rooms, it also has a bed and breakfast with five upstairs bedrooms.
Chef Richard has been running the restaurant since it opened nine years ago, but he's also a jack-of-all-trades. He does everything from cooking, mowing and planting.
There are about 30 weddings per year at the plantation, and most are held in the courtyard in the back of the house. There are 500-year-old oak trees and the one near the altar has the resurrection fern. If it does not rain before the wedding, which makes the fern turn green, Chef Richard will spray the tree with a hose to make sure it turns green.
"Everything we do here is fresh from scratch," Richard said. "We have a great small crew so we're kind of personal. We feel like we really get that nice southern charm."
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WWL-TV reporter Leslie Spoon can be reached at lspoon@wwltv.com; Follow her on Twitter at @LeslieSpoonWWL